Before the retreat review, let everyone wait for a long time, forgive me!

******

For reasons of secrecy, the ships of the "Frederick Caesar" group set sail from several ports in Ireland, France, and Spain, assembled in the Bay of Biscay, and were to remain in radio silence in the event of any accidents, and the first half of the trip went smoothly, and by the time Beinck was instructed to turn around, they had sailed 460 nautical miles from San Miguel, instead of the 500-550 nautical miles expected by the staff officers of the Allied fleet. Pen, fun, and www.biquge.info

With a voyage of more than 400 nautical miles, the speed of an ocean-going freighter and a large oil tanker would take another two days to run with all the strength, while the speed of a warship can be a day and a half as slow and as fast as a dozen hours. Now that the American and British warships have been dispatched, the current position of "Frederick Caesar" is not only not safe at all, but can even be said to be very dangerous. Despite his concerns, Rear Admiral von Heinck, the commander-in-chief of the fleet, quickly made the decision to turn the fleet, but in order to keep the large fleet in formation during the steering process and avoid collisions with each other or ships falling behind due to inadequate information transmission, he asked all ships to hang up green navigation lights after receiving the flagship's light signal.

As a result, this cautious approach has led to big trouble.

While the flotilla was turning, a lookout officer on the Navy transport ship "Maxi Tello" near the right reported to the officer on duty that he had seen a torpedo running at a rapid speed about ten meters from the side of the ship, but the officer on duty did not find anything unusual when he looked at the sea, and no other person on board saw the torpedo or torpedo track except for the lookout, and no ship in the entire fleet was hit by a torpedo.

Coincidentally, about 2,000 meters away from the "Maxi Tlllo", there was also a crew member on duty on the German tanker "Foot" who saw a white torpedo track on the dark sea, and he hurriedly called his companion, but when the other crew members came to him, there was nothing abnormal on the sea, and the crew felt that their companion must have seen something wrong.

In fact, the torpedo that the two men saw was not an illusion, but an attempt to attack by the same American submarine. The submarine is called "Blue Cod", which is a Perch-class submarine designed and built by the US Navy in the late 20s, and its combat radius reaches an astonishing 5,000 nautical miles, which means that it can make two round-trips between Europe and the Americas while floating. The Americans are worthy of a bunch of guys who are "big for everything" and have stopped building submarines with a displacement of less than a thousand tons since the mid-10s. The surface displacement of the Perch-class submarines reached 1,400 tons, while the destroyers of many countries at this time were only eight or nine hundred tons.

The intersection of the Blue Cod and Frederick Caesar's fleet was both accidental and somewhat inevitable, and it had been lurking in the waters of the east-central Atlantic Ocean for more than two weeks, during which time it had been a shameful experience -- it was spotted and chased and beaten by Allied destroyers, and it was even attacked once by a long-range Allied patrol aircraft, but fortunately it suffered only a few skin wounds.

At dusk the previous day, the seaplanes of the "Frederick Caesar" flotilla came to explore the way, and the "Blue Cod", which had been hit repeatedly, dived into the water when it saw the planes from a distance, thus evading the early warning reconnaissance of the opponent. Major Anderson, the captain of the ship, was a clever man, and he knew that the presence of light seaplanes meant that enemy ships were not far away, and that they were likely to pass through the area, so after nightfall, he did not float the submarine as usual, because it would probably be detected by the radar equipment of the enemy ships. The "Blue Cod" turned into a cunning and patient flounder, hiding its massive hull, which is easily detectable by radar, under the impenetrable surface of the sea, leaving only the can-shaped conning tower and the spare air vent out of the water, quietly waiting for the arrival of its prey. A few hours later, the prey arrived as scheduled and lit up with a green beacon light, which gave the hunter a clear direction of attack.

Faced with such a good opportunity, the clever Major Anderson made the mistake that cowboys easily make, that is, he was reckless, he trusted the calculations of the weapons commander too much, and feared that the enemy ships would find themselves if they got any closer, so he ordered an early attack, and fired four torpedoes in one go.

If an American-made torpedo with a medium speed is not heard seven or eight minutes after launch, it can be judged that it has failed to hit any target. After a full cup of coffee, the sea was still as quiet as usual, and the crew of the "Blue Cod" could not help but regret the loss of the torpedo, and at the same time rejoice that the enemy did not find out.

In nature, the larger the sea creatures tend to be, the slower they move, and the Perch-class submarine is not very agile in terms of whether it is up and down, diving, or turning, so Major Anderson did not let it turn around and use the tail torpedo, but waited for the crew to complete the loading before launching a second attack. While waiting, the major paid close attention to the movements of the enemy ships, and after observing for a long time, he suddenly realized that the enemy's fleet was not simply adjusting its course, but was about to turn around and return home!

Can the prey delivered to the door slip away? Major Anderson was very depressed in his heart, it seemed that there were twenty or thirty ships in this fleet in front of him, and with the battle situation in the Azores, this cliff was transported by the Allies to the front, and if he killed such a ship, it could sink to the bottom of the sea with thousands of tons of weapons and ammunition or hundreds or thousands of marines, which could reduce a certain amount of resistance for the US and British troops to attack Sao Miguel and other three islands in the future. However, no matter how large a submarine is, it is also a submarine, and if it rises rashly, it will most likely be discovered by the enemy's shipborne radar, and then a medium- and close-range artillery battle will ensue -- the "blue cod" that is free in the sea with a short attack and a long attack will inevitably become a delicacy on the enemy's plate......

Major Anderson was worried about what to do next, but he didn't know that the submarine conning tower that peeked out of the water was his monkey's tail, and the enemy command ship "Ruger" had already caught this clue.

The "Ruger" is a standard military salute-class heavy cruiser designed and built by Ireland and actively marketed to the allied countries, with a standard displacement of 15,000 tons, with a 55 times diameter 203 mm naval gun manufactured by Krupp as the main weapon, balanced performance, all-round coverage, and a relatively high cost performance for export models. A very important reason why the German Navy General Staff chose the "Ruger" to serve as the command ship of the "Frederick-Caesar" convoy was that it was equipped with the MC-IIB short-wave pulse radar -- with this set of high-cost technical equipment, the escort ships could effectively monitor and alert the 50 km sea area around the convoy when the reconnaissance planes could not take off, and this was particularly valuable at night and in bad weather.

A well-trained fleet can be turned around in the course of its members, while an improvised fleet can only be turned in the most primitive and clumsy way, that is, in a circle. In the first half of the circle, the "Luger" as the command ship continued to sail westward, and its relative position to the "Blue Cod" gradually narrowed. Despite the very weak radar reflection from the submarine's conning tower, the skilled Irish radar crew noticed the only anomaly in the surrounding waters and reported it to the bridge as soon as possible.

The situation was exceptional, and Rear Admiral von Heinke, the first commander of the regiment, and Colonel Farrell, the second commander of the regiment, were on the bridge at the moment, and after receiving a report from the radar room, the two briefly exchanged views and decided to immediately dispatch the destroyer closest to the suspicious target to investigate.

Having received the order, the German destroyer "Willy-Frazier" quickly deflected course and slowly sailed to the designated area in order to facilitate sonar detection. The crisp battle alarm bell rang in the destroyer's cabin, all the crew members on duty rushed to their positions, the ship's guns began to turn, and the anti-submarine crews began to remove the safety of the depth charges and put them into a state of readiness for launch.

"Willy-Frazier" gradually approached, the Americans quickly sensed the approach of danger, and Major Anderson hurriedly ordered the submarine to completely dive into the water, and then maintain a static at a depth of twenty meters. Past experience told him that it is difficult for an enemy ship to detect a submarine that is submerged and stationary, not to mention that the sea is pitch black, there is no moonlight and no starlight, even if the enemy ship is close to within 100 meters, it may not be able to dig out this cunning flounder.

In this way, the "Blue Cod" was quietly suspended in the water, and the periscope in a stowed state was less than five meters above the surface of the sea. If an enemy destroyer were to pass directly above it, there was even a possibility of a direct collision between the two.

On the other hand, although the radar of the "Luger" has lost its target, it can guide the wingman to eliminate potential threats through a combination of modern and traditional technical positioning methods. In its radar and navigation rooms, a number of technical officers worked closely together to use radar data, nautical drawings, and mechanical calculators to calculate a series of coordinate parameters, which were informed by the communications department, and the communications corps converted these parameters into light signals so that the "Willy-Frazier" could be targeted.

On the bridge, Rear Admiral von Heinke said to his temporary partner: "If it is really an enemy submarine, we must sink it here, otherwise it will soon report our exact position to the enemy fleet, after all...... Radio jamming technology is not as robust as one might think. ”

Colonel Farrell replied lightly: "Sailing so far, I think the probability of encountering an enemy submarine is more than seventy percent, and considering that the depth of the seabed here is almost infinite, the probability of the enemy submarine successfully escaping after being discovered is also more than seventy percent...... All in all, we don't seem to be in a good position, and it doesn't necessarily have to do with whether there are enemy submarines here. ”

This made Rear Admiral von Heinke feel a little unhappy, and he asked rhetorically: "I wonder if the Irish Navy's attitude towards this war is as unoptimistic as yours?" ”

The Irish Colonel, who came from a pure background, said in fluent German: "As long as His Majesty has sufficient confidence in this war, we have sufficient confidence, and the concern just now is only directed at our present situation - does not the direct telegram from the Fleet Command asking us to turn around and return to Europe is not a good indication of the situation?" ”

(End of chapter)